This document describes a study to design a smart plantar to support correct posture and movement during sports activities. The plantar would use sensors to monitor a user's movements and provide data on any incorrect behaviors via a mobile application. An early evaluation would involve users testing a prototype plantar during activities while providing feedback. The goal is to help users identify postural issues and motivate behavioral changes through personalized data visualization.

1. Designing a smart plantar to support people in sport activities
Assunta Matassa
matassa@di.unito.it
University of Torino,Department of Computer Science

2. Goal
This paper describes a study for designing a smart plantar
supporting correct body behaviour during sport activities.
The plantar allows people to monitor their movements during
sport activities in order to reveal and predict any eventual
incorrect behaviour.
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3. Background1
Posture and gesture analysis and the monitoring of body
motions represent topics of increasing interest in many research
fields.
The emergence of wearable accessories, e-textiles, nano-
sensors that are not only flexible, but also conformable to the
human body, establishes a breakthrough for many area of
interest and especially for the health.
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4. Background2
There are several applications
of wearable technologies in
the area of health care.
These technologies, in fact,
represent an innovative way
for people to control and
manage their personal
parameters by themselves .
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5. Background3
These phenomena appear strictly
related to Quantified Self (QS).
Qs is a movement that helps
people to acquire personal data
on different aspects of their daily
lives, like the activities performed,
the space visited, people
encountered, physiological and
psychological states.
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6. Background4
Combination of wearable accessories and quantified self tools seem to be useful
especially for the health.

7. Research question
Starting from this insight, we will adopt wearable
technologies as valuable means for supporting health care
and wellness.
The main aim of this work would be the design of a
wearable tool for supporting sportspeople in their activities,
making them aware about emerging disadvantages due
to excessive physical activities and overtraining and bad
postures.
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8. Motivation
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ENGAGEMENT.
People engaged in sport are used to take care about their health and their lifestyle,
following special diets, doing frequent exercises, and more generally, giving a large
attention to their body.
CONTROL.
Monitoring athletic preparation through self-reporting measures would facilitate the
adjustment of practices to optimize performance outcomes and to prevent the
emergence of postural impairment.
MOTIVATION.
The solution could provide an efficient support for motivating them to change their bad
attitudes

9. Design Solution
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We present a personalised smart plantar that works as a
wearable sensing garments capable of recording
proprioceptive maps of body motions with no discomfort for the
users during sport activities.
In fact, it is a non-obtrusive instrument, capable to track data in
a seamless way and without interfering with sport activities.

10. Related Worksposture
Many studies explore the potentialities offered by technologies to support
wellness and health, especially focusing on postural problems.
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Lumo Lift Darma UpRight

11. Related Workssport
Many studies explore the potentialities offered by technologies to support
wellness and health, especially focusing on postural problems.
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RunSaffer OpenGoSensoria

12. All of these projects mentioned above focus on providing standardized
product to users, without considering their personal features and needs.
We intend to give each individual user the opportunity to personalise
her own product taking into account personal requirements and
preferences and exploiting the capabilities offered by rapid prototyping
instruments.
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13. 1.
1.CREATION: (i) Taking an image of users' feet and design a
customizable plantar using a 3D printer; (ii) selecting a set of sensors
that allowing to enhance the plantar;
2. EXPERIENCE: Adopting the developed plantar during everyday
activities;
3. RETHINK: Visualization of the stored data and the manipulation of
them through a mobile application to support the behavioral change.
User Experience
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14. 1. The user needs to take three photos of her feet using her
smartphone.
2. Starting from the pictures of the arch, heel and ankle it is possible to
generate a map the key anatomical features that make the
individual foot and gait unique.
3. The personal model of plantar can be augmented with additional
personal features such as shoe type, weight, kind of activities, etc.
4. After the modeling process, the plantar will be ready for printing
using a 3D printer and some selected material such as Nylon plastic.
1° Step: design your personal plantar

15. During the experience with the proposed prototype, the user
can register her personal data using a smart plantar located
inside her shoes and physically connected with a set of sensors
able to measure different parameters.
2° Step: develop your personal plantar

16. 1. The mobile application provides some brief indications
about the gathered data, highlighting the emergence of
incorrect positions, motions and eventually signals relative to
overtraining.
2. The main effort will due to the visualisation and
representation process of collected data in order to obtain
user-friendly and meaningful representations of them.
3° Step: retrieve and monitor your performance

17. Early Evaluation
• We decided to conduct a
session of bodystorming to
provide every member of the
sample group a first hand
experience, giving attention to
the contextual features in the
space close to the real- setting.
• The sample group will be
providing of an experience
prototyping as a form of
prototyping based on a direct
engagement of people in
designing activities.

18. The combination of a bodystorming session with the use of
experience prototyping will give to sample group a global
experience of usage of the smart plantar in real contexts of use.
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19. As an iterative process, this early evaluation would be a first step towards
the definition of the final concept.

20. Expected results
1. understand the acceptability and the usability of the
proposed concept;
2. make the users aware about their movements and
encourage them to adopt more correct ones thanks to the
information collected by mobile application;
3. give designers the opportunity to conceptualize other
system features, and to redefine the existing ones.

21. Assunta Matassa
University of Torino
matassa@di.unito.it
Thank you for the attention!
Q&A